Lincolnshire NHS Trusts' scores improve in national staff survey

NHS staff working in mental health, learning disabilities and acute hospital services in Lincolnshire, feel supported by their managers, are satisfied with their levels of responsibility and involvement and feel more motivated at work, according to the findings in a national survey.
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Results in this year’s national NHS Staff Survey, show marked improvements for both Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT).

This year LPFT performed above the national average for mental health trusts in 12 of the 32 key findings in the report.

These include staff feeling that the Trust takes action on their health and wellbeing, an increase in staff reporting errors, near misses and incidents and a decrease in staff experiencing discrimination at work over a 12 month period.

The Trust reported 17 key findings in line with the national average, with only three coming in below.

Improvements locally show that more staff feel motivated at work, believe the organisation provides equal opportunities for career progression and would recommend it as a place to work or receive treatment.

Areas where LPFT did not fare as well include staff feeling they are able to contribute to improvements at work and the quality of non-mandatory training, learning and development.

Meanwhile at ULHT a number of areas have seen improvement since 2015. This is due to the huge amount of work that has gone into improving staff engagement and in responding to staff concerns.

Results have increased in both staff motivation and staff satisfaction with their level of responsibility and involvement.

Scores also increased where staff were asked whether the Trust effectively uses patient and service user feedback, and similar to LPFT, results also say that the organisation and management have interest in and take action on staff health and wellbeing.

Overall staff feeling engaged increased from the previous year and improvements were also noted in answer to the question whether staff would recommend the Trust as a place to work and receive treatment.

This year, the response rate for ULHT increased from 33 per cent in 2015 to 39 per cent in 2016.

The NHS Staff Survey is the largest survey of staff opinion in the UK, gathering views on staff experience at work across key areas such as engagement and involvement and raising concerns.

LPFT’s response rate was 59 per cent this year - 12 per cent higher than last year - and Chief Executive Dr John Brewin said he was pleased to see staff engagement on the increase.

“The NHS Staff Survey is an essential indicator on the Trust’s performance as an employer and something we take extremely seriously and I am pleased that so many of our staff have taken the time to complete the survey.

“Alongside patient safety, staff satisfaction is one of our top priorities and having staff who feel engaged and valued in the workplace is important to us.

“These results will be analysed to see what areas we can improve on over the coming year, to ensure our staff are continually supported to deliver high quality mental health and learning disability services to all our patients, service users, their families and carers.”

Martin Rayson, director of Human Resources at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust said: “It is great to see these improvements from the NHS Staff Survey. We are already doing a lot of work to ensure that staff remain satisfied and supported in their work. Whilst there is more we can do, we are really pleased with these results and will continue to work with staff to further improve them.”